The 2019 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Tonton]

Thank you Tibo! Hopefully I'll get back in the top-100 ...

 

[tobydawq]

2nd on stage and unfortunately only 2nd on GC for Kragh. But What. A. Champ!!

 

[Salvarani]

Some points this week...

Edit: Also some points for Gibbons, forgot Oman ended midweek

Gibbons - 40
Trentin - 50
Antunes - 59
Vlasov - 56
Frankiny - 45
Aru - 5

+ some points for De Plus in the opening TTT stage at UAE. Robert Power finished 20 seconds after the Sunweb team, so I assume no points for him. Bauhaus also finished after the Bahrain team.

UAE Tour
BAUHAUS Phil
MARECZKO Jakub
KNOX James
MCLAY Daniel
GAUDU David
EWAN Caleb
DE PLUS Laurens
KITTEL Marcel
POWER Robert
GAVIRIA Fernando

 

[LaFlorecita]

No way around it, not a good week. I had hoped for more points for Cattaneo and a better performance by Felline and some surprise points for Conci in Haut Var but I'm guessing they had to do some work for Ciccone as well. But to stay positive, all my points came from riders that were picked less than 15 times.

Tour of Oman
Venturini 20
Fabbro 30

Ruta del Sol
Garcia Cortina 10
Cattaneo 9

Volta ao Algarve
Küng 40

Next week:
UAE Tour
Vincenzo Nibali
Remco Evenepoel
David Gaudu
Ilnur Zakarin
Marcel Kittel
Max Walscheid
Kristoffer Halvorsen
Fernando Gaviria
Matteo Moschetti

Quite a strong sprint lineup I feel, and it seems like this will be the first race for Moschetti as designated sprinter. Also Gaudu seems like he could be FDJ's GC leader. Potential for points is there but not too many rare picks.

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
Ivan Garcia Cortina
Stefan Küng
Edoardo Affini
Luke Rowe
Harry Tanfield
Edward Theuns
Loic Vliegen

More names than usual for me in the Flemish classics, but no certainties. At least many are rare picks that have shown good form already this year.

Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne
Clement Venturini
Ivan Garcia Cortina
Nacer Bouhanni
Stefan Küng
Edoardo Affini
Robert Stannard
Harry Tanfield
Luke Rowe

Venturini, Bouhanni and maybe Garcia are my cards if it ends in a sprint. I'm not expecting too many points here.

 

[tobydawq]

My week:

Tour of Oman
Bart de Clercq - 5
Darwin Atapuma - 5
Ryan Gibbons - 40

De Clercq is already on profit as he didn't have a single race day last year. He rides with an artificial hip but seemed to be going quite well. Atapuma was disappointing but I read an interview where he said he wouldn't be great from the get go but expected to come good deeper in to the season. Gibbons found Green Mountain a bit too tough and even though he has already more than tripled last year's score (he is already on 220 points), I still have a feeling that he might soon score really big.

Tour du Haut-Var
Beñat Intxausti - DNF
Fabio Felline - 0

Third DNF for Intxausti - already on stage 1. It doesn't look like his optimism will prove justified. Felline is also having a very lacklustre opening of his season, even if he was helping Giulio Ciccone.

Tour of Antalya
Mathieu van der Poel - 6

Less than expected but no big points will come from a 2.2 race. Omloop is going to be immensely exciting regarding him.

Ruta del Sol
Matteo Trentin - 50
Óscar Rodríguez - 30
Esteban Chaves - 5
Lars Boom - 0
Marc Fournier - 0

Encouraging signs from Chaves who was working for his teammates and was very visible throughout the race. Rodríguez got another decent GC position, and when the big teams leave the Spanish scene in the next months, he will have his own playground, I hope. Trentin got his two stage wins and continues to look really good. I shouldn't have picked Fournier.

Volta ao Algarve
Søren Kragh Andersen - 150
Simon Spilak - 44
Stefan Küng - 40
Fabio Aru - 5
Luke Rowe - 0

Absolutely awesome performance by Søren Kragh. 150 points in a race where he could have been expected to perhaps get 30, if you were being optimistic. Second on the TT was in line with expectations (and he was only beaten by my other guy, Küng) but that his bid for GC victory should be so close to actually resulting in the overall win was extremely surprising. Küng surprised with a top 20 on GC, Aru sucked, Rowe assisted and Spilak was 10th, which is neither here nor there. It seems like his season will be better than last year (for sure) but he doesn't look like the version of him that will be close to winning neither Romandie nor Suisse.

In Abu Dhabi Tour I have the following eight riders:
Vincenzo Nibali
Marcel Kittel
Phil Bauhaus
Matteo Moschetti
Caleb Ewan
Benoît Cosnefroy
Remco Evenepoel
Sébastien Reichenbach

With Gaviria, Cavendish, Walscheid and Mareczko also present it looks like almost the entire field of significant sprinters regarding this game is in this race. So that's going to be interesting. Hopefully, Viviani and Bennett won't just kill them all.

 

[Koronin]

Oman

Andrea Garosio - 0
Bryan Coquard - just the stage points already accounted for


Andalucia:

Surgio Samitier - 0
Tomasz Marczynski - 0
Xavier Canellas - 0
Rafael Valls - 5
Jurgen Roelandts - 0
Sepp Kuss - 5


Algrave:

Simon Geschke - 0
Neilson Powless - 62
Simone Petilli - 26
Marco Mathis - 0

Tour de Haut Var

Logan Owen - 0

Happy with my points from Powless and Petilli. Especially from Petilli as he should now be very close to getting into positive points territory. It's a good start for Powless.
Now onto UAE where I have some real hope of some good results and points, esp having two of the GC favorites. Although Nibali is on a majority of teams.

 

[armchairclimber]

Slightly disappointed with Ciccone and Hirschi today, but thrilled with my boy Pog. Tidy few points from Oomen too. I think it's the first time I've cracked 1000 pts by the end of Feb, and I have 10 riders at UAE .... although, Kittel, Nibali and Gaviria are on pretty much everyone's teams. I'm looking forward to seeing Max Scachmann in his first outing.

 

[del1962]

Lacklustre week I don't think any rider I gad got more than 5 points, only positive was Bart De Clerck, Aru particularly disappointing

UAE should be better 12 starters

Paret-Peintre
V Nibali
Evenepoel
McLay
Gaudu
Callum Scotson
Cav
Tony Martin
Kittel
Zakarin
Richie
Gaviria

 

[Jancouver]

Re:

Oman

Andrea Garosio - 0
Bryan Coquard - just the stage points already accounted for


Andalucia:

Surgio Samitier - 0
Tomasz Marczynski - 0
Xavier Canellas - 0
Rafael Valls - 5
Jurgen Roelandts - 0
Sepp Kuss - 5


Algrave:

Simon Geschke - 0
Neilson Powless - 62
Simone Petilli - 26
Marco Mathis - 0

Tour de Haut Var

Logan Owen - 0

Happy with my points from Powless and Petilli. Especially from Petilli as he should now be very close to getting into positive points territory. It's a good start for Powless.
Now onto UAE where I have some real hope of some good results and points, esp having two of the GC favorites. Although Nibali is on a majority of teams.

I like your enthusiasm!

Even though that you know that top50 is probably the best you can achieve in this game, you are still cheering on your team.

Kudos to you!

 

[MADRAZO]

Re:

Tour of Antalya
Mathieu van der Poel - 6

Less than expected but no big points will come from a 2.2 race. Omloop is going to be immensely exciting regarding him.


.[/quote]

Does not look like he will start it.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Oman

Andrea Garosio - 0
Bryan Coquard - just the stage points already accounted for


Andalucia:

Surgio Samitier - 0
Tomasz Marczynski - 0
Xavier Canellas - 0
Rafael Valls - 5
Jurgen Roelandts - 0
Sepp Kuss - 5


Algrave:

Simon Geschke - 0
Neilson Powless - 62
Simone Petilli - 26
Marco Mathis - 0

Tour de Haut Var

Logan Owen - 0

Happy with my points from Powless and Petilli. Especially from Petilli as he should now be very close to getting into positive points territory. It's a good start for Powless.
Now onto UAE where I have some real hope of some good results and points, esp having two of the GC favorites. Although Nibali is on a majority of teams.

I like your enthusiasm!

Even though that you know that top50 is probably the best you can achieve in this game, you are still cheering on your team.

Kudos to you!

Thank you

At this point I'm not sure this team is capable of a top 50.

 

[skidmark]

Re: Re:

The one rider I was really considering and ended up leaving off my team that I'm wishing I had included is Trentin. Hope he continues to do well for those who did pick him.

You are a much nicer person than me. I wish nothing but poor form and mild illness on those I discarded in my wisdom. Have already got the voodoo dolls out for Trentin, Gibbons and Durbridge. Trentin was largely an emotional decision as he's the sort of nails rider I should like, but have decided to take against him for reasons I can't really remember

Yeah, wow Trentin looks really good. I had him on my 'for sure' list and dropped him to shift things around in the final days... I think I explained near the team reveal, but I wanted to add MvdP, and the three candidates for dropping were Coquard, Nizzolo and Trentin. I dropped Trentin because I felt like I hadn't seen enough to know that his crazy run of form in fall 2017 wasn't just 'form of his life' kind of stuff. But it's looking like it was a step up that has stuck. Congrats to those who added him to their teams (and kept him on them).

 

[repre]

16 points this week. Is it an all-time low for a week with decent number of races?

 

[Salvarani]

Re: Re:

The one rider I was really considering and ended up leaving off my team that I'm wishing I had included is Trentin. Hope he continues to do well for those who did pick him.

You are a much nicer person than me. I wish nothing but poor form and mild illness on those I discarded in my wisdom. Have already got the voodoo dolls out for Trentin, Gibbons and Durbridge. Trentin was largely an emotional decision as he's the sort of nails rider I should like, but have decided to take against him for reasons I can't really remember

Yeah, wow Trentin looks really good. I had him on my 'for sure' list and dropped him to shift things around in the final days... I think I explained near the team reveal, but I wanted to add MvdP, and the three candidates for dropping were Coquard, Nizzolo and Trentin. I dropped Trentin because I felt like I hadn't seen enough to know that his crazy run of form in fall 2017 wasn't just 'form of his life' kind of stuff. But it's looking like it was a step up that has stuck. Congrats to those who added him to their teams (and kept him on them).

Regarding Trentin. I think changing from Quickstep to Mitchelton last year might have been a little bit of a transition for him, but then he also got injured in the spring and couldnt do himself justice in the classics at all. It took until the European Championships to get his first win of the season. He only got one more as far as I can see in a race.

I think I picked him because I hoped he could be a point machine this year. Especially after Ewan leaving, and I thought they was gonna count a lot on Trentin for sprints and for the classics. Trentin is also more than just a sprinter. He is the Sagan/GVA-type of a rider, I feel. It also felt like a more of a "fun" pick than some other riders in that point range. Happy days so far, but that can change quick...

 

[escartin]

Re:

16 points this week. Is it an all-time low for a week with decent number of races?

I am not 100% sure I even got that many

it was not a good week with injuries to Dunbar and Swift plus I had Pogacar, Trentin and unique pick Frankiny (who is already nearly in profit) all on my shortlist .

I think I may already have twice as many points this week via Gaviria's win today! :lol:

 

[MADRAZO]

Re: Re:

The one rider I was really considering and ended up leaving off my team that I'm wishing I had included is Trentin. Hope he continues to do well for those who did pick him.

You are a much nicer person than me. I wish nothing but poor form and mild illness on those I discarded in my wisdom. Have already got the voodoo dolls out for Trentin, Gibbons and Durbridge. Trentin was largely an emotional decision as he's the sort of nails rider I should like, but have decided to take against him for reasons I can't really remember

Yeah, wow Trentin looks really good. I had him on my 'for sure' list and dropped him to shift things around in the final days... I think I explained near the team reveal, but I wanted to add MvdP, and the three candidates for dropping were Coquard, Nizzolo and Trentin. I dropped Trentin because I felt like I hadn't seen enough to know that his crazy run of form in fall 2017 wasn't just 'form of his life' kind of stuff. But it's looking like it was a step up that has stuck. Congrats to those who added him to their teams (and kept him on them).

Regarding Trentin. I think changing from Quickstep to Mitchelton last year might have been a little bit of a transition for him, but then he also got injured in the spring and couldnt do himself justice in the classics at all. It took until the European Championships to get his first win of the season. He only got one more as far as I can see in a race.

I think I picked him because I hoped he could be a point machine this year. Especially after Ewan leaving, and I thought they was gonna count a lot on Trentin for sprints and for the classics. Trentin is also more than just a sprinter. He is the Sagan/GVA-type of a rider, I feel. It also felt like a more of a "fun" pick than some other riders in that point range. Happy days so far, but that can change quick...

Agree on that Ewan leaving thing.That also made me have Trentin as one of the most certain picks of all too, especially with Mezgec leading him out a lot last year too, so he was surely becomming the new nr 1 sprinter on the team, and then with all the missed springraces (where he was even also supposed to get a lot more chances than before on the new team for sure making more than up for him potentially underperforming on a team not overperforming like Quick-Step riders often does) due to injury and the absolute superform he had showed in 2017 that was at least 3 strong arguments for picking him, besides the pure focus on pointdifference from 2017 to 2018 and him also being at a age where he should be topping and with little risk of decline.

 

[SafeBet]

Been a struggle thus far. There's only a few picks I'm really happy about: Evenepoel, Kittel and Kump. None of them will be a difference maker.
I had high hopes for Padun to start the season with a bang but he fell ill. Swift had a pretty serious accident while training like Senni. O'Connor dropped from Oman due to health concerns. McNulty, Theuns, Bauhaus and Felline have been dull, Cavendish looks like a grandpa competing against big young boys and Banaszek even managed to finish a time trial OTL!!

Good news: the cobble season is upon us

UAE
Nibali
Zakarin
Bauhaus
Lambrecht
Meintjes
Evenpoel
Cavendish

This is not the kind of race where I'm expecting points from Nibali. But Zakarin and especially Lambrecht should give me an idea of what's in store for 2019. I'm also hoping Meintjes goes back to ninjaing his way to WT top10. No serious hopes for Bauhaus, Cav and Remco.

Omloop
Van Aert
Cortina
Planckaert
Boom
Theuns
Touze

Cycling is back. And so should be the SafeBet team (at least back in the top100 ). Van Aert is among my main players, I regret picking him over Trentin at this point but he doesn't need to know: every little point counts! Cortina looks in great shape and might finally show his panache in such races. Theuns has been in the top10 before so I'm confident.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Looks like Kudus could have about 200 points at the end of the Tour du Rwanda - that's a good start. Of course I don't have him, in fact I don't think I've ever had a rider race one of these African early season free points races.

 

[Akuryo]

Re:

Looks like Kudus could have about 200 points at the end of the Tour du Rwanda - that's a good start. Of course I don't have him, in fact I don't think I've ever had a rider race one of these African early season free points races.

I have him. Along with Mas, Haig, Zakarin and Knox my gc-heavy team seems to pick up some steam last and current week. Aru is still a lot of wasted points it seems but oh well, at least I am not alone in that boat.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

It looks as though those with Gaudu should start celebrating.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

I knew Porte would be **** after his most recent post on IG / Twitter. Dude has zero motivation outside of a few races. Horrible pick ..shoulda known better.

 

[armchairclimber]

Re:

It looks as though those with Gaudu should start celebrating.

Not getting too excited yet ... but he looks like he means business after a lacklustre 2018. He is a popular pick though.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

It looks as though those with Gaudu should start celebrating.

I am not celebrating just yet but he looks good

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

Looks like Kudus could have about 200 points at the end of the Tour du Rwanda - that's a good start. Of course I don't have him, in fact I don't think I've ever had a rider race one of these African early season free points races.

I have him. Along with Mas, Haig, Zakarin and Knox my gc-heavy team seems to pick up some steam last and current week. Aru is still a lot of wasted points it seems but oh well, at least I am not alone in that boat.

Of those I only have Zakarin and I'm glad he's showing something at least. Knox is one I considered for quite a while and for now it looks like he could be a good pick.

 

[Salvarani]

Re: Re:

Looks like Kudus could have about 200 points at the end of the Tour du Rwanda - that's a good start. Of course I don't have him, in fact I don't think I've ever had a rider race one of these African early season free points races.

I have him. Along with Mas, Haig, Zakarin and Knox my gc-heavy team seems to pick up some steam last and current week. Aru is still a lot of wasted points it seems but oh well, at least I am not alone in that boat.

Of those I only have Zakarin and I'm glad he's showing something at least. Knox is one I considered for quite a while and for now it looks like he could be a good pick.

Yeah, Im a lot more optimistic about Knox after today. Hope he can keep this up and finish high on the GC.